


It Drives You Insane [ON HIATUS]

by TheManSings



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:48:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1486975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManSings/pseuds/TheManSings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's funny how you end up in some town in a random bar with a thousand dollars strapped to your legs. You never know how you got there, but so long as he's by your side it doesn't really matter. </p><p>Ian and Mickey have been missing for a couple of months. After a fight breaks out a bar they're forced back to the Southside to seek out help from the families they left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ian had a stupid smile on his face. Drunk, almost sloppy but with the charm of a man who knows it doesn’t come across that way. The girl seemed enamored, if not horrified, by whatever shit was spilling from his mouth. That was both the asset and the draw back of all the ways Ian seemed able to connect with people—he could talk them out of just about anything, but had probably talked them into the shit situation to begin with.

Mickey threw back another shot of whiskey. “Fuck this is shit.” The bartender looked at him annoyed. “What? Not my fault you’re serving up this stuff. Get better product, have happier customers.”

“Yea cause you look like a real connoisseur of the finer things.”

His eyes turned toward Ian. “Yea whatever. Give me another one.”

The guy was a prick. Clearly stuck in a shit job under the impression that some day he’d get out to live the life he thought he was classy enough to deserve. Class is an illusion. An idea set so high above the rest of the room full of assholes you were stuck with that the first person to reach it was gonna hang themselves trying. And then what good is it? Who gives a shit about being a classy corpse? You’re gonna rot with everyone else one way or another.

He pressed his fingers further into the glass. “Have a real shitty night asshole.”

Mickey turned to get off the seat. His eyes having been trained on the only person they ever looked for. It had to be almost 2 in the morning and the people flooding in and out of the doors to the bar had been putting him on edge. They were in Idaho—some defunct no name town apparently only known for their high school swim champ able to hold their breath for 70 seconds.

Ian’s hands flew up animatedly and the girl jumped with a laugh getting caught on her lips. The drink he was holding sloshed just barely spilling over the side of the glass. If she was concerned about him spilling on her, it didn’t show. The only telling sign of anything running through her head was the way she flicked her tongue out periodically to lick her lips. The bite down of her teeth and how it made her skin turn from pink to white and then the fucking predictable lean of her goddamn shoulders inching _closer_.

Mickey hated her.

“And then I ran— _ran_ faster than I’ve ever run in my life. That’s why you’ll never catch me. I’m always thinking three steps ahead.”

“And ten steps back.” Mickey walked up placing his hand on Ian’s shoulder. His skin hot jumpy nerves of insanity.

“Hey!” He jumped from his seat beaming and crashed his lips hard against the side of Mickey’s face. “Isn’t this place great?”

No. It wasn’t.

“What are you talking about?” He shifted his eyes toward the girl, wiping the spit of the kiss off his cheek. “Anything worth knowing?” It’s amazing the venom you can put into such small words.

“Nah, nah I was just telling umm—“ Ian snapped his fingers towards her direction.

“Andrea.” Her voice was small.

“Andrea right, right. Sorry.” He turned back into Mickey, his whole body a funny stance of melded and far away. “I was just telling Andrea how it’s almost impossible to catch me.”

Mickey quirked an eyebrow in her direction. “Isn’t that interesting.” She smiled shyly. Her agenda all but blown up in her face. She wanted him.

He could feel himself coming unraveled. Jealousy is an interesting beast. The kind that is so small in sneaks into your house before you know you’ve left a crack open under the door. A miniscule little shit of a feeling that drinks all those alice in wonderland type cocktails of _drink me and you’ll grow_ that always seem stashed somewhere inside your head. Before you know it your whole house has been repainted the color of green green rage.

The girl stuck out her hand. Brazen.

“Hi. Andrea.” Stupid name. Fuck off.

Ian looked at him expectantly. Drunken niceties playing across his face even more so than on a normal day. Play nice and all that stupid shit.

“Marcus.” Mickey jammed his hand into hers.

Her teeth were too white for the bar. Reflecting off of the light strong enough to give a glare. “Nice to meet you.”

The feeling wasn’t mutual.

The sound of breaking glass made his eyes wander. A guy too purple to be picking a fight stood up all valor and false confidence. Mickey almost wanted him to get knocked out. No one wears a lavender shirt unless they’re looking for trouble. Like hello, yes I can take you and I’d like to try. In more ways than one—the guy was probably looking for someone exactly like Ian tonight. Maybe the girl wasn’t his biggest threat after all.

 “We gotta go.”

Ian looked at him all glassy eyes and big ideas. His features seemed so much more offensive whenever he drank. Like maybe the blood cells and vessels were so shot with alcohol they tried to rise to the surface. Bruising him from the inside out. A fantastic display of himself for the rest of the world to trace to the source of everything he was. It made Mickey livid. Like a secret of his had been put on display.

Mandy had had this stupid journal when she was younger. One of those invisible ink type things. She was so fucking confident that no one would ever be able to read what she wrote that the day he’d told her he’d found her secret black light decoder may have been one of his guiltiest moments. The look of horror and shock on her face. Nothing takes someone by surprise as much as their own surprise. But it doesn’t take that much to break into the depth of someone’s mind. There’s always a key, somewhere. Somehow someway they had to get there in the first place. You just gotta follow their steps.

Ian continued to stare at him. A world of suggestions playing across his face. “We’re good right?”

Someone screamed. Lavender man hit the floor hard and Mickey could see the bartender reach for a phone. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Curtis?” The girl reached forward to place a hand on Ian’s forearm. “Is everything okay?”

Mickey wanted to strangle her. No everything wasn’t okay. Firstly, his name wasn’t Curtis and his name wasn’t Marcus and this was definitely the last place he wanted to be. Everyone in here needed a fight and it was officially a countdown to when the cops would show up.

Suddenly it hit him that he had no idea how the fuck they’d gotten here. Marcus, Curtis and one thousand dollars in cash tapped to the inside of their jeans.

Ian slipped a smile onto his face using every bit of charm he had in his bones.

“Hey Andrea, you think we could get a ride?”


	2. Chapter 2

There was this girl who was attacked by a shark once. It was a big fucking deal, ate her arm or something crazy like that. Mickey didn’t really understand why she was so special because he’s one thousand percent positive that other people in the world have been attacked by a shark at some point. The girl didn’t even die—although that might have actually been why people cared. Survivors are so much more intriguing because you get to see the fall out.

Mandy had been so into that story though. Always telling him some bizarre fact about the girl, how she lived or like if the shark was actually a dolphin or something. Really he tried his best to not listen to anything that came out of her mouth, but one thing she said always stuck with him.

The girl only survived because she didn’t scream. One scream and she would have bled out. Died. Done.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my _god!”_ Andrea gasped through hyperventilated breaths. “Oh my g—“

“Shut the—“ Mickey coughed up blood seeing small flecks of red hit her right in the face. Sprayed across her cheek like he was really dying. “--fuck up.”

For the record, they didn’t make it out of the bar before the fight. For the record, Andrea was a bitch. For the record, her hands were the only things keeping him alive right now. Locked in place against his chest pressing harder that he’d originally given her credit for.

“You need to get to a hospital.” The muscles in her face twitched like he could visible see her try and rein in the ‘oh my gods’. “We need to get you to a hospital like right now. Right right now.”

“Yes thank you for the newsflash.” Every word burned. It was worse than the times he’d been shot. All lower body hits, he had no idea how lucky he’d got with those. Although he supposed he was still a little lucky. What does this make? 3 lives down and 6 to go? God he didn’t want to be a cat.

Mickey craned his neck up dragging his scalp toward the rest of the bar. A shooting pain seared his nerves going right to his head and his eyes watered involuntarily. “Where’s Ian?”

“Who?” The pressure on his chest eased briefly. “Oh god oh god—“ Her hands again like lead weights. It seemed incredibly hard for her to keep her focus on one task at a time. He probably shouldn’t be distracting her with questions.

“C-“ Another cough. “Curtis.”

“He’s he’s—“ Blood oozed up between her fingers. “He’s getting the car, a car.” She blinked hard and swallowed. “He’s getting _my_ car.”

Why did he go and get the car? That was the real question. They should have sent shaky fingers over here instead.

“You need to go to a hospital.”

He kept thinking about the shark attack girl. She lost her whole arm and didn’t scream. She lived because she didn’t scream. She didn’t scream, she didn’t scream, she didn’t scream. Mickey wasn’t about to die because he couldn’t hold back his annoyance at a stranger who is obviously suffering from short-term memory loss and can’t stop repeating the stupid obvious fact at hand.

His head felt wet. The blood all caked to his shirt and leaking down his arm—he knew there was no blood on his head.

He needed to get to a hospital.

If they had only gotten out of there 2 minutes earlier, none of this would be happening. And suddenly he was happily able to put the blame right back on Andrea.

She was so desperate for Ian’s dick in her mouth it was like she was fucking high off just the thought of it. He’s not judging—or he is—whatever.

Lavender shirt was done for. The bartender had called the cops and they both knew they had to get out of there or else shit was gonna come down on them. Word had to have gotten out about them by now—in some town. Nothing had been confirmed, but they weren’t stupid.

One of the guys they’d hit had to have talked. It would have been simple for them really, but fear is a funny thing, keeps you quiet.

The first guy they hustled was his idea. Mickey can freely and assuredly say that. He needed to get Svetlana that $500 and there was no better option, but after him—he doesn’t even know anymore.

They had been in some shitty diner at 3 in the morning. Ian unable to sleep and treading the line between falling too far to one side. Mickey was drinking cup after cup of bad coffee. It was totally burnt and the food sucked but it felt right somehow. Like them being awake on the wrong side of the day made sense.

“ _I’m tired of being fucking broke man.”_  

_“There’s always a way around it.”_

He doesn’t even remember anymore which one of them said what. If they were even referring to anything in particular—but a guy pulled up next to them walking home. His cologne expensive and spilling from his car. A BMW. He remembers that.

It took Ian nothing more than a duck of his eyes to have the guy practically begging to take them home. It took them barely 10 minutes in the car to walk away with his money and the extra bottle of _armani code black_ that he kept in the glove compartment.

And just like that, they had a solution.

They never fucked them and the idiots never learned. It was exhilarating.

Course the only downfall was that they couldn’t stay anywhere for very long. It was like an addiction and they were total fucking junkies. At first only hitting one guy every now and then, to soon not being able to go into a bar or store or even certain street without seeing easy money. They were racking up a victim list.

If Mickey didn’t like cops before, he especially hated them now. That was their one rule. Avoid cops always.

Andrea had wanted to stay for another drink or twelve. Whatever would get her into Ian’s pants faster and Ian, ever the fucking nice guy, tried to let her down easy. Explaining that he wasn’t feeling too well—was in a hurry—was gay and that Mickey here was his boyfriend. Naturally, she didn’t believe that one.

By the time they got to the door with her pout still in place, another fight had started. Three guys a foot away from them going at it more viciously than he’d seen in a while.

“ _You calling me a faggot?”_ Punch.

“ _You’re the fag you motherfucking cocksucker!”_ Kick.

“ _You’re a dead man.”_ Stab.

Ian flew back hard to the floor from the force of the guy falling on him. The other two going in for the death hit and really Mickey wasn’t trying to fight them off. You pick your battles. This wasn’t a battle, this was an escape.

His blood was boiling seeing any casualty to Ian but the guy could take a hit so Mickey just needed to hold them off long enough for him to unscramble from beneath for poor bleeding fuck of a stranger. Just long enough for them to get out of there.

He didn’t even feel the knife go into him. Only knew the damage from the way his legs went out, from Ian’s panicked look of horror kneeling over him frantically placing his hands anywhere to stop the bleeding. He must have blacked out for a minute or two cause he doesn’t remember him leaving. Doesn’t know how he and Andrea were now huddled under a table in the corner of a room now full of mini riots.

“Hey listen—“ Her voice bled through his thoughts. “Hey you gotta stay awake ok?” Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.

“This is gonna ruin your dress.”

“What?” She leaned in closer, her hair falling onto his chin.

“Your dress—“ He sighed feeling the weight finally bring his eyelids too heavy to keep open. “My blood’s gonna ruin your dress.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I saw this on tv once.” He could feel hands sliding up under his shirt. Unmistakable hands. “Actually—I mean I _know_ this works. They had us do it to this kid in basic training. When I joined the army.” Ian’s voice stalled momentarily. Like maybe the cassette had skipped or was just flipping to the other side. “I joined the army once but, didn’t last long.”

He began counting his breaths. 1—2—3—

“Are you sure this isn’t gonna hurt him?”

Ian’s fingers flittered over Mickey’s chest, tracing secret messages into his skin. It rung through his head kicking over memories of the time they forgot to eat dinner or get out of bed. Mandy banging on the door screaming about how fucking annoying they were and how she was never cooking for them again. It’s started with idle hands and turned into everything. That’s usually how it goes.

He thought maybe he could figure out what he was tracing. The way his skin rose in goose bumps almost painfully, it felt like _sorry_.

“Oh no.” Ian’s voice seemed another cassette altogether now. “This is gonna hurt him a lot.”

Some people talk about being so fucked up that they can’t tell the difference between what’s really happening and what’s just going down in their head. Mickey doesn’t really get that. He’d been super fucked up once to the point of thinking that there were seahorses swimming around on his ceiling, but even then—he kinda knew it wasn’t true. Because he’d be really fucking pissed off if someone let seahorses into his house and he wasn’t about to have people around him that stupid. So naturally, the seahorses couldn’t be real. Besides, he and Ian had seen Blackfish, and were boycotting seaworld anyway. And you can’t get seahorses unless they’re from seaworld. Right?

There was no way he’d be friends with anyone that ballsy they’d be rogue seahorse hunting.

But this wasn’t like that and maybe it was exactly what people were trying to say all along. A disassociation from your head. Left is right and right is lost somewhere in an old box of poptarts you just remembered you had on your shelf. The delay between any outside motion and how you’re taking it in—

This had to be it.

His head screamed before his body attempted any form of catching up. The flitting instance of worry that maybe he was in a coma came and went between the seconds that his eyes jumped open and twitched enough that he could have been a psa for epilepsy.

“It’s alright Mick.” He could feel Ian closer more so than see him. His eyes barely registering light as more than weird blobs and twists, and he screwed them shut pinched and burning. Blink, blink, blink—he wanted to see him. “Shh, hey, hey—look at me.”

Mickey opened his eyes again, panic subsiding to pain. Ian’s features pixilated into a clearer picture of glassy eyes and flushed cheeks. Like maybe he’d just run 5 miles.

His throat hurt and the attempt to speak choked him on a scream he was already reeling on. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

It might have sounded like he was crying. But he wasn’t, he swears. It’s just the blood. It must have moved to his cheeks.

“You know shark week?” Ian nodded at his own question. “One time there was a special about shark attacks. And I thought, well, I should watch this in case I ever get attacked by a shark.” This whole theme was really getting out of hand. “So anyways, I watched it. And this guy got attacked and was then stuck in a boat with his friend but he was bleeding out. They couldn’t make it back in time and they couldn’t stop the bleeding so—“ He smiled almost laughing. “So they had cigarettes and they used it to cauterize the bite!” Mickey’s back arched with a spasm as all of a sudden everything began to fall into place.

“I though you said you learned this in the army.” Andrea piped up from the other side of him. Blood all over her hands and dress.

Ian looked up almost offended. “No. Shark week.”

“You’re fuck—“ Mickey’s body ached and burned like nothing he’d ever felt. Every movement seemed like trying to lift a car. Funny how heavy you feel when you lose most of your body mass. “fucking nuts.” Blood fell from his lips into his mouth. If it had been dried he wouldn’t know anymore. It all tastes like pennies in the end.

“You should give into passing out.” Ian hovered over him. “It’ll hurt less that way. When you don’t know it’s happening.”

He watched him light a cigarette, take a deep breath of nicotine and didn’t even bother to ask any more questions. He was out by the first burn anyway.

\---

Mickey doesn’t know how long he slept—was passed out—doesn’t matter. But every now and then the sting of Ian’s hand would warm over his face just long enough to rouse him for a ‘ _what the fuck’_ before sleep took him again. If Ian ever had a bone to pick, it would have been the perfect excuse to get that shit out.

It took him a few seconds of waking up on his own to realize he wasn’t in a dream. The sun shattered into uneven rays through dirty blinds that looked about as good as he felt. His head pounded with the slightest movement. His tongue swollen and bumpy making his teeth sworn enemies of his mouth.

What the fuck happened?

“You’re awake.” Ian sat in a chair, his knee bouncing up and down shaking his arm and in turn his head that balanced in his palm. “How are you feeling?” He hadn’t slept.

Mickey rolled onto his side hissing at the connection of his bare skin to the sheets. “Like a truck ran over another truck and there was an egg inside and I’m that egg.” An onslaught of pain raked through his body. Knives laced with salt and acid and bad vodka all testing his organs to see if they’d pop. “And then like you came running over and set me on fire just to make it extra exciting.”

Ian laughed soft in his throat. A glimmer of a before picture that Mickey never knew would ever play hide and seek with him. “Go big or go home.”

“Next time let’s just go home.” His body rode out the wave of eviscerated muscles until he could feel his back and stomach slowly start to uncramp. “Where’s my shirt.”

“Ruined. Had to cut it off you.”

There was something wrong. Something about the way the air smelled and how the curtains were drawn just enough to not be able to recognize the street. How long had he been out? How’d they even get out of that bar and why despite all the rooms and beds they’d slept in over the last year did this one feel so familiar.

“How long was I out?” Ian’s knee did double time. His eyes bearing into his own creating an entirely new sense of avoidance. The desperate kind. “Ian!”

“4 days.”

A siren went by somewhere and a dog barked. It reminded him of the rat mutt that used to wake him up every fucking morning until Mandy went outside with a hammer and told the owner she was more of a cat person anyway.

And then it hit him. And Ian looked away and didn’t bother to come up with any type of reasoning. It was no use.

Mickey reached out to the side of the bed and felt the chipped dresser exactly in the shape of his tooth. He would recognize it anywhere.

His dresser, his room, his bed.

They were in fucking Chicago.


	4. Chapter 4

“You want some breakfast?” Ian took a swig from an only slightly discolored paper cup. “I got this breakfast sandwich thing and it’s pretty good—I mean the peppers are kind of weird but the avocado—“ He took a bite, “great avocados. Just great.”

He wanted to rip his head off. Like coffee and self-indulgence could fix anything. It reminded him of his mother—you know, before the whole cokehead phase.

There was a stain on his comforter. It had to be jizz. From him or Ian or whatever fuck may have slept here after him. Mandy always bringing in guys from the cold who wanted nothing more than to steal every part of her for less than the worth. It was one of those things they’d never talked about but he’d assumed she knew. If anyone fucked with her, send them to his room. Worst case scenario, he would be there. Best case, he’d be awake enough to kill them twice.

It always amazed him what was considered justice. Innocent and evil and all that—they should make a show about it. Some weird version of a killer only ever killing other threats. Ian said that already existed.

“Why are we here.”

The whirr of the air conditioner that had always been and would always be broken rattled around in the vents. Ian should have remembered that. It was _broken_. The most alarming thing about moving on in life isn’t forgetting what you used to know. It’s forgetting how far you ever got away from it. Forgetting that you had forgotten in the first place.

“I told you.” His voice quieted. “—I just needed a second to think.”

“You couldn’t have thought in a motel? In the car?” Mickey spoke to the wall mostly. Curled up on his side pissed and physically drained all at once making him more enraged that he couldn’t do anything to show it. “Jesus Ian are you fucking high?”

The words fired back into his head catapulting him to a year ago. His body moved faster than the registration and _absolutely_ faster than his current state would ever recommend. Anything to unmimic the exact way Ian had once lay in his bed staring at walls.

He looked back wondering if the brain matter of the memory had exploded across the sheets. It was harder to tell what Ian pretended not to notice for Mickey’s own benefit anymore. “I kinda wanted to say hi.”

“Hi? What?” Mickey’s hands felt shaky. “What are you gonna do? Call up the family you haven’t seen in months? Say _hey yea I know that I’ve been dodging calls and fuck if I know who’s still alive or in jail or not but I just wanted to say hi_.”

Ian took another sip of coffee. “Yea. I guess.”

His chest heaved, the lack of reaction making everything that much worse. The silence scratching at his skull like an unpinned grenade you know you needed to throw first. Everyone becomes a casualty of their situation eventually _._  “Do you know how much I hate you right now?”

But Ian just smiles. A small almost shy smirk of secrecy. The kind of smile you unwilliningly feel crawl across your face the moment you know that you’re being lied to. That’s why Santa Claus will always be doomed to fail. Even the best secrets only ever exist to be told.

He doesn’t know I know he knows I know he’s lying. Every time, the same old thing.

“Ummm—“ A face peeked around from the doorway. “Someone’s at the door.”

Andrea’s eye roamed over the room carefully. Afraid of what she’d walked into. For a moment he had never been more relieved. He was dreaming. Had to be. There was no way that this bitch, who, let’s not forget, only ever talked to them to get Ian’s dick in her mouth, was in his house. No way. No, fucking, way.

“She seems really mad at me particularly and I—“

Mickey swung his attention back to Ian. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

Ian gets a really specific look about him whenever he’s expecting pain. Physical, emotional—any type of argument really. Not the kind that causes your face to pinch. And it’s not the kind that squares your shoulders or forms fists. It’s this sort of twist on masochism. The indifference of maybe he’ll like it, he just needs to wait and see.

“She chipped in for gas.”

“She chi—She chipped in for gas?”

Ian looked between them both, a shrug falling from his shoulder. “Yup.”

“She said that I have her shirt—“ Andrea waved vaguely toward the front of the house.

“Have you fucking lost it?” Mickey jumped up out of bed feeling the daggers of pain shooting up from the bottom of his feet straight to his brain. “No really. Is this a cry for help? I need to know. I need to know what the _fuck_ you were thinking cause—“ His voice becoming audibly more frantic. “Because I need like— _at least_ an hours heads up so I can fucking like.” He smacked himself in the head for emphasis. “Mentally prepare.” It was a mistake, now everything was ringing.

“What are you trying to get at Mick?” Ian now standing as well, a subdued rage starting to boil inside his chest. “Just fucking say it.”

He dug his palms into his eyes in an effort to dampen out the firecracker bursts of pain happening behind his lids. He could hear Ian’s feet run to him, knew he was starting to go down and the snarls of agony were bubbling from his own lips. He finally understood why people put their hands over their mouths in horror movies.

“Mickey? Hey—hey—“ Ian’s body practically molded to his own easing him back onto the bed.

Ian also gets a really specific look when he’s expecting pain for someone else. His achilles heel, he’s all shaky hands.

He had 3 very specific things he wanted to say to him. 1—No words have ever been so bitter than ones that someone else puts into your mouth, so stop it. 2—Andrea needed to go yesterday. 3—Someone’s at the door.

“What?” Ian whispered, and maybe he’d actually say that last part out loud, he wasn’t sure anymore. Red hair a whir of moving color turned away from him to where the bodies stood in silence.

Lip stubbed out a cigarette against the doorframe. Mandy and Debbie pulling the fantastic stance of woman _pissed off_. Both their arms folded tightly over their torsos, eyes blazing. Debbie’s hand jolted out toward her older brother in an expectant manner.

“You owe me $20.”

Lip twisted his face into incredulity. “Fuck you I said he’d be with Mickey.”

“No, you said it probably had to do with him. I said he’d _left_ with him. Huge difference.”

Mandy didn’t say a word. Ultimately, at the end of the day, she was the only one capable of taking either of them down and the waiting could’ve made even the most loyal soldier crack and spill his mission.

But she just kept her eyes trained on Andrea. The fucking twig of a girl who now had her back practically painted to the wall. That’s when he noticed.

She was wearing Mandy’s shirt.


End file.
